Comments on: Guardian N° 25,421 by Arachne

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:52:15 +0000

Some wonderful clues, but sadly my SE corner is rather bereft of answers. I admire 15, which I just never quite sussed. I like Paul @ 23′s improvement on 11, but I managed it anyway.

Did anyone else (if anyone else ever reads this…) think the clues were vaguely thematic – lots of repeated words and concepts throughout?

Thanks for the blog, PeterO, to show me where I fell short, and for the puzzle, Arachne, which certainly had its moments of joy along the way to 20% failure

By: Roger

Roger — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:46:08 +0000

I loved “woodshed” did no-one pick up on the Cold Comfort Farm reference, in which Aunt Ada Doom “saw something nasty in the woodshed? A haunted outhouse for sure!

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:11:40 +0000

Marathons often have two starts (but only one finish!).

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:05:04 +0000

RCW/SH @30/31: of course, we/I did understand “starts”. But my PinC is much more Ximenean than I am, and this difference is what I wanted to make clear.

BTW, re-reading that post, I saw that I wrote:
A bit of a pity that Arachne had to use a dash here. A HYPHEN would have been better for the surface, but at the same time have caused a conflict with the comma in “1,9?.
Which should have been:
A bit of a pity that Arachne had to use a dash here. A COMMA would have been better for the surface, but at the same time have caused a conflict with the comma in “1,9?.

But as I said earlier: *gobbledegookly brilliant!*

By: Ann Kittenplan

Ann Kittenplan — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:43:16 +0000

Thanks PeterO and Arachne.

Took two goes. It will never cease to amaze me that I can be completely stuck, leave the crossoword for an hour, return to it and the answers fall in to place more or less immediately. This time for me it was the NW corner.

Have to say unlike others I didn’t find this at all to my taste. That said I did enjoy WOODSHED.

By: Scarpia

Scarpia — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:27:45 +0000

Thanks PeterO and Arachne for another delightfully spun web of clever clues.
Thought this might be interesting – http://tinyurl.com/3arhj8n

By: Brendan (not that one)

Brendan (not that one) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:15:24 +0000

I enjoyed this puzzle and like a few others found the bottom half a lot trickier than the top. Although I completed it 4 minutes quicker than the last Arachne I attempted on 2nd August.

I’m surprised nobody else mentions another interpretation of 22dn. I didn’t “see” the 1,9 as odd numbers but interpreted the “seekers” as in search of another type of Asylum. These people may indeed behave oddly. Perhaps I’m not PC enough for the modern era!!!

No “sycophantic eulogy” from me I hope. God forbid.

By: Arachne

Arachne — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:12:30 +0000

‘starts’ was definitely intended to be a plural noun. Thanks, RCW

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:09:31 +0000

Sil
I see your point about ‘devotee starts’ but would your PinC be happier if ‘starts’ was a plural noun rather than a verb?

By: tupu

tupu — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:40:03 +0000

Finished this earlier but only got to the blog now. Thanks PeterO and Arachne as usual. As Sil says, the south was harder. I got cornucopia from the definiton and the final a, but then carelessly misparsed it. A number of other excellent clues with good surfaces etc leading clearly to the solution without other help. I had to guess Spinal Tap.